It sometimes seems that this column devotes a disproportionate amount of space to children's performers appearing at Centrepointe Theatre.

But no other local venue comes any where close to the quality and quantity of the acts appearing at the Nepean theatre, which this weekend features Judy and David, a pair of children's performers from the Toronto area.

This season alone, Centrepointe has featured Charlotte Diamond, Lenny Graf, Robert Munsch and Bob Schneider, all terrific entertainers who've played to full or nearly full houses of enthusiastic kids. Over at the National Arts Centre, by way of contrast, there has been little music for children, other than the Sharon, Lois and Bram show last fall and the regular NAC concerts for kids. (One wonders why, since it's obvious from the successes at Centrepointe how keen local parents are to expose their kids to good music.)

Judy and David are typical of the good, up-and-coming entertainers that Centrepointe has signed this season. They performed their first children's concert three years ago and, like most of the big-name acts who've gone before them, have been steadily working their way up the ladder, from shows in schools and small-town halls to more recent dates like those at Centrepointe and a New Year's Eve performance be fore 30,000 folks in Niagara Falls.

Their show features lively, upbeat harmony with lots of energy, probably due to the fact that, at 30 and 31 respectively, Judy and David are at least 15 years younger than children's singers like Raffi and Fred Penner (not to mention Sharon, Lois and Bram, who either already have grandchildren or can't wait until they do).

The couple, a rare married act in children's entertainment, go by their first names only so they don't have to get an unlisted telephone number at their home in Richmond Hill, near Toronto. They have no children of their own, though David says they're working on changing that.

The amazing thing about Judy and David is that while they're not well known in Canada, they've sold an astonishing five million cassettes, most of them overseas. But until recently they hadn't even signed with a record company.

The key to their success was working with a distribution company to market their five albums in unique packages made up of yellow school buses and red fire trucks, shipping them overseas by the gross, and translating them into 13 different languages (usually with foreign singers doing the words, backed by Judy and David on instrumentals.)

And it worked, partly because of the cute packages, but also because the music is catchy, in any language.

The only problem, says David, was when people saw their concerts and tried to find their cassettes later in Canada, they rarely could. "We were constantly getting notes from people about how they could never find our tapes."

That's why they've recently signed with the Tanglewood Group a record company that represents Eric Nagler, among others. They hope to have their first album out with Tanglewood this year.

Family Channel will air Judy and David's first television special Sunday night, at 7 p.m. This half-hour show, called Judy and David's Music Shop, is polished, fast-paced production that the pair hopes will be turned into the pilot for an on-going TV series.

It features the perky Judy and David working in a fictional music shop, but cuts away often to their live shows, just as Sharon. Lois and Bram's popular Elephant Show used to do. Not surprisingly, Michael McNamara, the director of this production, has also worked on several Sharon, Lois and Bram specials. It's best for kids under seven.